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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26309611">how does it feel now that you've scratched that itch? (pulled out all your stitches, hubris is a bitch)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensandWritingDesks2714/pseuds/RavensandWritingDesks2714'>RavensandWritingDesks2714</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings in Author's Notes, Angst, Dark Thoughts, Description of Injuries, Discussion/Repression of feelings, Drowning, Fey justice, Feywild feels-trip, Feywild fieldtrip, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Playing fast and loose with the mythos, Psychological Torture, Sabotage and Sacrifice, Self-Harm, Sort Of, Spoiler for Campaign 2 Episode 108, Stream of Consciousness, There are other characters too just not typing it all out, Torture, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, Vague religious discourse, clever i know, jailbreak au, loss of self, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:28:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,421</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26309611</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensandWritingDesks2714/pseuds/RavensandWritingDesks2714</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't let go, and The Traveler is a selfish creature. He thinks about kicking her off, of letting her fall to her friends who are waiting below.<br/>Instead she holds on, and he does too because they're taking him to the Feywild and he is terrified. (He has every right to be.) </p><p>Or,<br/>The Moonweaver's Planetar is not so merciful; Artagan is not so selfless; The Mighty Nein are not so quick to act; and the Feywild is not to be trifled with.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beauregard Lionett &amp; Yasha, Fjord &amp; Jester Lavorre, Jester Lavorre &amp; Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre &amp; The Mighty Nein, Jester Lavorre &amp; The Traveler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. sensitive to faith, not denial (but hey who's on trial?)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I absolutely have no right to be starting another fic but I couldn't help myself. I had this rattling around in my head the moment the episode ended; really the moment the break started and I couldn't help but think *what if.* So this is a full jailbreak AU where Jester and Artagan are taken to the Feywild, to whatever fate the Fey have in store, leaving the Mighty Nein behind to figure out how to get Jester back. Meanwhile Jester is left to come to terms with the true nature of her deity on her own, while also trying to survive the twisted nature of the Feywild. </p><p>This will be full of whump, angst and feels so do be warned. This may/will get dark at times but I will always place warnings in the Author's notes!</p><p>Hope you all enjoy this chaotic mess from my 3am post episode muse.<br/>- Raven </p><p>Title: 100 Years- Florence+The Machine<br/>Chapter Title: Evil- Interpol</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's as if someone cast Slow. A drop of molasses in place of the blinding light, sluggish limbs and jellied minds and jerky, petrified movements and wide, horrified eyes. Fjord half thinks he could turn and see Caleb, the dark amber liquid dripping from his lips, apologetic for the miscast spell and already stretching fire between his fingers to make up for it. If only it could have been so simple as something arcane, somehow. Something understandable and reachable. Not this...not this divine retribution, searing bright and hotter than the volcano beneath Fjord's feet as he jumps, desperate, willing his own magic to grasp hold.</p><p>He's not quick enough. A moment of stuttered shock and hesitation is enough for the divine being's wings to take Jester and The Traveler the crucial five feet from his reach. (It’s just five feet. How cruel could the gods be, to let such a critical moment hang on something so mundane?)</p><p>"Jester!" Fjord bellows, hopeless and helpless, doomed to watch as the Moonweaver’s agent drags her further and further away.</p>
<hr/><p><em>Useless</em>.</p><p>Caleb is no fool, for all the times he may have thought it in the throes of darker frames of mind. He is well aware of his feelings towards Jester, the way she’d burst into his bubble of apathy and despair and dragged him into happiness kicking and screaming. He knows the pull she has on his heart, in ways he’d never thought he would feel again. (In ways he’d never thought he’d <em>deserved</em> again.)</p><p>He had been a fool, once. A foolish boy and a fool in love and he’d thought things were <em>good</em>. That they would do good, with this love.</p><p>(Fire has a way of cleansing perspectives, purging even the purest of love.)</p><p>Not that he’d had any illusions as to his relationship with Astrid. With Eoudwulf. They had been all the other had. It had been a love borne of desperation and a sheer, primal <em>need</em> for closeness. For kindness in the lack of it. For the reminder that they were still human, at the end of the day, beneath the blood and the bruises and the arcane.</p><p>But this? Jester? He had never imagined a love so…pure, and raw. And so. Utterly. Useless.</p><p>(He has no spell slots, nothing of a high enough level because everything he could have had prepared, everything he <em>had </em>prepared had been for her.)</p><p>
  <em>Useless! </em>
</p><p>He can only twist a feather, dark as raven-ash, around and around and around his fingers in the odd hope that perhaps she would let go.</p><p>(She does not let go, and the feather is charcoal and ash on the ground before he realizes that he is crying.)</p>
<hr/><p>Beau maintains eye contact with Yasha, because she thinks if she actually looks up she might start screaming.</p><p>(She has to let go, right?)</p><p>She knows Yasha is thinking the same thing she is, or else something similar. Can see the understanding and resolve deep in those mismatched eyes, eyes that still send a pulse of something hot and needy through her every time. She can’t half believe this is real…Yasha’s permanence had never been a set thing since they’d set off adventuring together barely a year ago. And yet now? Now Beau thinks the only reason she isn’t losing her mind is the steady, piercing gaze across from her.</p><p>(Jester will let go, and then she and Yasha will catch her, and everything will be fine.)</p><p>Except…except…Jester isn’t letting go.</p><p>Jester isn’t letting go and the holy pain in the ass from Sehanine keeps taking her and Artagan higher and higher into the moon that shouldn’t have even been there in the first place and Beau couldn’t give a <em>shit </em>about Artagan but she gave many shits about Jester and wait- wait- wait!</p><p>(The moon waits for no one, and all Beau can think is this is <em>not </em>how she wanted to distance herself from her crush at all.)</p>
<hr/><p>Fear has never been something that Artagan could say he was familiar with. Oh from a vague, distant standpoint, sure. He’d seen his fair share of mortals, shaking and quivering, white and wild-eyed in that primitive state of desperation. Had heard his fair share of pleas for aid and flitted towards whichever passerby struck his fancy to help. (Or sometimes, he’d just let them be, just to see what happened. Just for <em>fun</em>.)</p><p>Fear is such a base, human thing. He’d never understood it. Never had need for it, so above and removed as he was from the cloying weight of emotion and care.</p><p>(The chains are made of moonlight itself, yet they slice deep; crimson lines bubbling from his skin and dragging up that same primitive terror he’d used to think so beneath him.)</p><p>This was supposed to be <em>fun</em>, is the thing. This was supposed to fun and whimsy and just a fleeting desire, not meant for permanence. Not meant for <em>meaning</em>.</p><p>(He’d never meant to <em>mean</em> anything to anyone.)</p><p>Certainly hadn’t meant to mean anything to her. Jester, his first, his favorite, his…only. True follower. True…friend.</p><p>(She’d been lonely.)</p><p>He’d been lonely.</p><p>(He was a patron of travelers, those weary and burdened from the road and in need of some lighthearted respite.)</p><p>He’s not sure what it was about the little blue tiefling child that had caused him to stop traveling. What had caught his attention so strongly from his life of movement and carelessness and wanderlust and <em>freedom</em>.</p><p>(Maybe it was just that. Freedom. He’d seen a lonely soul in need of freedom and had sought to free it.)</p><p>And that, it seemed, would be his greatest downfall.</p><p>The chains bite deep, cold and searing hot all at once, and he is not a mortal being, to have a mortal soul to tremble within a mortal body. But he is trembling nonetheless, at the thought of all of this being for nothing, at the realization that his freedom and whimsy would do nothing for him now, that there was nothing now to save him.</p><p>“Wait! Wait, please!”</p><p>(She is clinging to him. She is clinging so tight it almost hurts worse than the chains, and he wants to laugh. He wants to cry. He can do neither, the chains tight enough to stop even that from spilling forth.)</p><p>
  <em>Let go!</em>
</p><p>He tries. He wants to think he tries. The words bubble in his throat, useless noise and vague syllables of sound that only rebound off the chains in and around his mouth. She only holds tighter, and he thinks at first with alarm that the chains must be tighter than even he’d thought before, if he can feel the wet of blood on his skin.</p><p>(She is crying, sobbing into his waist and clinging to his legs and she is not letting go.)</p><p>The planetar does not wait, and cares nothing for Jester’s pleas.</p><p>(Artagan can’t blame them. He had felt much the same towards those beneath him— towards his own followers. What did their feelings matter to one such as him?)</p><p>What did her feelings matter, to one such as a planetar; to one such as <em>Sehanine</em>?</p><p>(Shit but he’d really pegged her wrong, hadn’t he?)</p><p>And now he was being dragged back…it lurches sharply in his gut, that <em>fear</em>, so strong he wants to be sick with the force of it. He hadn’t planned on ever going back…knows that the Court awaits him, knows that he can’t escape this with a searing finality.</p><p>“Please…it was a misunderstanding! He’s really a nice guy!”</p><p>Jester’s voice is choked with tears, and Artagan wants to stroke her hair back but his hands, bound as tightly behind his back as they are, are in no way to offer a comforting position.</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he thinks. <em>But how wrong you are, my tricky little gem.</em></p><p>How wrong she was, to put any kind of faith in him, to have such a purity of faith to lift him beyond a mere Archfey. To somehow love him enough to cling, even now, in the face of divine retribution. To speak for him, even now, when he’s used her and thought even fleetingly, so little for how any of this affected her.</p><p>He is selfish, even now. Because, as the moonlight moves to swallow them whole, he does not let go.</p><p>(And neither does she.)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. lord don't let me break this (give me arms to pray with instead of ones that hold too tightly)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not<br/>He's good and he's bad and he's all that I've got<br/>Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I'm begging you please<br/>Don't take that sinner from me<br/>Oh don't take that sinner from me</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings for this chapter include dark thought processes, fey justice, and drowning.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Feywild is beautiful. (Jester doesn’t think she’s ever hated a place more.) The Traveler -<em>Artagan</em>, he has always been Artagan- is suddenly no longer strange and alien; not when she is surrounded by Fey; all of which appear far <em>more </em>than even he appeared to be. The colors are <em>too </em>bright, their eyes and teeth and tongues too <em>sharp</em>, too scathing and cutting as they tear down what little defense she had hastily constructed.</p>
<p>The trial is a sham.</p>
<p>She realizes this about halfway through, when a section of the supposed jury breaks to one side to discuss what they were going to have for tea after. They had already decided he was guilty…this was just for show.</p>
<p>“As Archfey, you swore to honor the sacred oaths of the Fey and to uphold the position according to the standards of the eladrin…”</p>
<p>Jester sees Artagan roll his eyes out of the corner of her own, and she almost smirks alongside him, almost lets his blasé manner rub away her anxieties. The trial might be all a sham and just for show, but the chains around his wrists are still very real, replacing the moonlit ones almost the moment they’d touched down onto the shifting pinkpurpleblueblack grass. If it weren’t for that, and the way the Fey all sneer with cold eyes at them, she would almost believe she had no cause for worry.</p>
<p>(If it weren’t for the way the Traveler <em>Artagan</em> trembles as the sentencing drags on.)</p>
<p>“…Speak No False Words, Break No Oaths, Harm No Outsiders…” The Fey continues. “These are the laws that all fey agree to uphold as a part of this Court, and none are exempt from that. Not even you, Archfey.”</p>
<p>They spit the word like it’s a curse and not an honorific, and Jester clenches her hands into tight fists and waits for the Traveler to wave his hands and just dismiss all of it. To be fair, he does try. The chains rattle hollowly as he attempts a flippant wave, and discomfort flashes across his face for just a touch long enough to shatter the illusion of carelessness.</p>
<p>“And I <em>have</em> upheld them,” he says, his voice rolling smooth and silky as ever from his mouth. “Nothing I’ve done has broken any of your ‘sacred oaths.’ This is all just a touch too ridiculous…even by my tastes.”</p>
<p>Jester almost laughs. (The Fey certainly do not.)</p>
<p>“You claimed to be a god.”</p>
<p>“That was--”</p>
<p>“A simple lack of clarification.” The Traveler (Artagan!) slides a chain-laden hand easily in front of Jester, halting her defense. His eyes flash sharp, unnatural green at her in warning, and she bites her tongue hard, furious.</p>
<p>
  <em>Let me help you, you idiot! </em>
</p>
<p>She nearly shouts it there, in front of them all, but keeps it in her head. Artagan’s eyes crinkle at the corners like he’d heard her anyway, and she aims a few more frustrated swears his way just for good measure.</p>
<p>“I never made those claims myself, therefore, no intentional falsehoods were spread on my part.”</p>
<p>“Intentional or otherwise, you made no attempt to stop such a spread--”</p>
<p>“….and perverting your true nature…taking on a human….”</p>
<p>“---beyond even than that…you claimed to be a very <em>specific</em> god---”</p>
<p>“Impersonating a deity…!”</p>
<p>The voices of the Court blend together in drones of vicious hissing and curses that Jester only half understands. She cringes back from the force of it, but the Traveler…he merely sighs and tilts his head at her as if to make light of the ferocity. The tilt of his mouth is all wrong for it, though. She’s good at crafting masks for herself, good at hiding her feelings. He’s worried.</p>
<p>“No harm was done in the end,” he interjects lightly, and the Fey seem to arch and ruffle like Frumpkin does when Jester tries to pet him when he’s napping.</p>
<p>(The thought of Frumpkin brings thoughts of Caleb, of the Nein, and her heart clenches tight in her chest.)</p>
<p>“Which of course brings us to our final point…Harm No Outsiders.”</p>
<p>She’s never seen him look guilty before, never so remorseful, not in anything so genuine. She thinks it a success, in a way; that he had learned enough from her to even consider feeling sorry for the few times he’d gone too far. (She knows if the Nein <em>were </em>here, they would agree with the Fey in that it had been more than just a ‘few.’)</p>
<p>“They would have been fine, at the end of the day,” he tries. He <em>tries</em>, is the thing. Jester wants to argue, to point out that surely, surely that was sign enough that it really wasn’t as bad as all that- not like they were making it out to be, surely?</p>
<p>Half the Court had tuned her out entirely, but the half that was paying far too much attention turn cold eyes her direction.</p>
<p>“And you?” one says, and the Tra- Artagan stiffens beside her.</p>
<p>“Me?” she manages to find anger enough to snap.</p>
<p>“Charmed enough by his ways, even you cannot deny that he has hurt you too,” the Fey argues.</p>
<p>Jester reels, struck, but Artagan is still tense, and he won’t look her in the eye and no…no, she was fine, he hadn’t—</p>
<p>“He’s my best friend!” she argues, and the corners of Artagan’s mouth twitch sharply. “He would never…he’s <em>never</em> hurt me.”</p>
<p><em>Physically</em>, a dark, snide and wounded part of her says. <em>Intentionally. But emotionally? Well. </em></p>
<p>She shoves that side away, buries it deep because that is far from what is needed right now. But something must show on her face, even with her argument, because the Fey sniffs and their eyes twinkle with something sharp and cruel.</p>
<p>“How quaint,” they say, voice light and saccharine. “He’s charmed his pet well.”</p>
<p>Artagan snarls and Jester bristles but the Court has already moved on and wait…wait…wait!</p>
<p>A show. A spectacle. They revel in the throes of it all, in having such control in a way that neither her nor Artagan could. There is talk of a verdict, of confirming what was already common knowledge, of punishments and retribution and the whole thing happens so fast after that. They are no longer bored, no longer disinterested. They grin sharp and cruel smiles to say the words, and Jester is so wrapped up in <em>'what can I do to stop this'</em> that at first it takes her a moment for the words to catch up in her head. </p>
<p>‘A dip in the river?’ Is that what that fey had said? </p>
<p>(Surely that can’t...they’d dragged them here for <em>that</em>?) </p>
<p>She’s outraged. She’s almost hysterical...almost laughs. Almost cries. Almost screams. </p>
<p>She buries it all and instead dredges of a joke from the grounds of her soul.</p>
<p>(Artagan is pale when she turns to deliver it to him, skin so white it's near translucent; and she is reminded suddenly that he is still very much a part of this world.)</p>
<p>His eyes, bright, vibrant, unnatural green, are wide with terror; sharper even, from when the celestial chains has first lashed around him. </p>
<p>“That's,” he murmurs, and his voice is pitched low with something like desperation. “No...that’s not...necessary. That...” </p>
<p>The words stutter out of him, and Jester feels a lurch of fear open up in her stomach at seeing him so shaken. </p>
<p>“The river will cleanse you of the mortal sins you’ve perverted yourself with,” the fey judge declares, and already there is movement, other fey grasping and grabbing and wrenching the chains to drag Artagan forward. </p>
<p>He bucks against them sharply, and Jester acts out of instinct, throwing herself between him and the closest fey. But there are more of them than just the two of them, and it’s half a desperate breath before they are overwhelmed. Artagan spits curses at them, and Jester lashes out with her fists and her feet and her dagger; the one thing she still had. </p>
<p>Someone strikes her. (Someone strikes <em>him</em> and it’s that which makes her blood boil, that has a hellish rebuke spilling icily from her lips.) </p>
<p>It barely causes the fey to break stride, and all the while there is laughter. It is not the type of laughter she is used to- the good kind, the kind that means people are joyous and delighted and full of positive energy and hope. This laughter is high and intense and cruel, and when they reach the edge of a massive body of rushing water, she understands why. </p>
<p>In the center there is a single thick trunk. The only thing Jester can think is that it shouldn’t be standing, not with how harshly the water is roaring past, not with the rapids tearing foamy white and furious at it. Not with how to roar of the water is enough to deafen her even from the shore. </p>
<p>Artagan goes even paler, if possible, and she has never seen him so afraid before. She fights harder for that, screaming to be heard over the fury of the water, of the fury of the fey, as they drag him- some flying, some skipping over rocks- to that impossible trunk in the center. </p>
<p>(She remembers reading stories, when she was little, about people throwing women they suspected to be witches into rushing bodies of water. Something about a test; that only those truly innocent would not drown-)</p>
<p>She loses sight of his curly, redorange hair almost immediately after they chain him there, and she screams her fury and terror into the white spray until she can barely breathe. </p>
<p>“He's going to drown!” She screams, hot tears streaking painful lines down her face. “What are you doing?! He's going to drown if you leave him like that!”</p>
<p>“Oh,” a fey murmurs, and it's with genuine surprise he turns to her. “His pet.”</p>
<p>That fury fills her again, but the others are still talking, overlapping her outrage with their cruelty. </p>
<p>“We should deal with her as well,” the judge sniffs, staring down at her with eyes like purple sapphire. (They are cold eyes, and Jester doesn't think she could hate them more.) </p>
<p>Her hatred turns to worry turns to fear, as they turn on her, bright eyes and cold laughter and cruel hands and intentions. She's baring her own teeth and gripping her dagger so hard it feels ready to cut her own skin instead, and just as she is reaching for the magic beneath the surface there is a roar from the river behind her. </p>
<p>“No one touches her! Anyone who harms her shall die by my hand- I swear it on my life and whatever name I have left, I will make sure that you <em>rot</em>.”</p>
<p>The Traveler’s voice <strong>booms</strong>, cracking with Power and Intent, like when Jester or her mother projects her voice with <em>thaumaturgy</em> or like the Traveler had on the island except this is so much more than even that and she realizes that he’s been holding out on her. (Holding back on her.) </p>
<p>The remaining fey freeze and the one who had been closest hisses fury but not one of them raises a hand to her, not even when she inhales sharply and takes a step into the river.</p>
<p>The water is <em>cold</em>, so cold that her foot goes numb, her whole leg goes numb and she can’t <em>breathe— </em></p>
<p>She’s not sure how she makes it back to the shore, thinks by the way she’s sprawled on her back, the way the water still leeches into her boots (leeches <em>from her</em>) that she’d been grabbed, or thrown back but most importantly she’s <em>breathing </em>again and all she can really do is tremble and sob and hate.</p>
<p>“Why?” she cries, when she no longer feels like she’s going to shake from her very body. “Why are you doing this?!”</p>
<p>“The river is the purest body of water in the Feywild,” one of the fey says, not so much to her but at her. “It will purge him of the inequities he has so degraded himself with.”</p>
<p>They’ve said that before, and she’s still trying to understand (trying <em>not </em>to understand- she doesn’t want to <em>know</em>)--</p>
<p>Of course, that’s when he slips under the water. </p>
<hr/>
<p>This was supposed to be fun.</p>
<p>That’s the only thing Artagan can bring himself to think, standing in the bruise-purple grass of the Feywild. (His home in origin only.) He hadn’t considered this place a home to him in yearscenturiesmillenia. He’d left because he’d seen everything, because he’d done all that he could, because he <em>bored</em>. It’s hard to have fun when everyone else around you doesn’t. When their definitions of fun involve turf wars and borders and oaths and the kind of mischief that leaves one with a bad taste in their mouth. (Usually that taste was coppery, and left crimson stains.)</p>
<p>He’d gotten spoiled, living in the mortal world. Spoiled by Jester, really, in how she so openly adored him, even before he’d granted her powers. He’s still not entirely sure <em>how </em>that had happened, either. How it was that her faith alone was able to elevate him so beyond his usual status. But he’d like the way it had felt, her faith. Her <em>love</em>. He’d let it fill him up, let it burrow deep and overwhelm his own removed feelings. Replaced them with something real and genuine. (Something <em>human</em> and humane.)</p>
<p>He hadn’t taken into account the way it would change him.</p>
<p>He hadn’t taken into account actually <em>feeling </em>anything at all.</p>
<p>(He hadn’t taken into account just how much it would <em>hurt</em>.)</p>
<p>The last thing he’d intended was for it to backfire so spectacularly. For Jester to get so involved. He’d truly thought it would be simple…that it would be funny.</p>
<p>(There is nothing funny about the rushing water.)</p>
<p>There’s a groove about three-quarters up the bottom of the trunk.</p>
<p>There’s another, a foot or so above where the chains lash his hands to the wood.</p>
<p>(He discovers what both are for in far too short an order.)</p>
<p>Jester screams from the shore, and it sends a pang through him so starkly he half thinks he must have been stabbed. The peal of laughter that follows it only serves to exacerbate the feeling, and the fact that he is <em>feeling </em>at all….</p>
<p>(He is a fey, first and foremost, and fey are not supposed to feel.)</p>
<p>The cuffs are made of iron.</p>
<p>He knows even before they close around his wrists, the dread clawing a frantic, desperate beast in the pit of his stomach and he shouldn’t be here he shouldn’t be here he <em>can’t</em>--!</p>
<p>The laughter is the worst, he thinks. Knows.</p>
<p>It had been such a sound, laughter in the mortal world compared to laughter in the Feywild. The mortals laugh for life.</p>
<p>(The fey laugh for his death, specifically.)</p>
<p>He resolves not to give them the satisfaction, but then Jester screams from the shore and he hears that sharp, cruel laughter and he knows even before he hears the threat: ‘deal with the <em>pet</em>.’</p>
<p>Pet! As if she were anything less than his soul itself.</p>
<p>(He’d made a mistake, crafting such a form for himself that he had. It only serves to betray him, heart and lungs heaving in tandem, stomach turning and organs releasing terror and he half thinks it’s a blessing in disguise, that he’s already in water so there’s nothing to further betray him in that regard.)</p>
<p>He’d made a mistake, dragging her here with him. He had been selfish; thought at least he had some comfort. It is no comfort, hearing her scream like that, hearing the cruel laughter, having her see him brought so low. No easier burden to bear than his own weight, held above the edge of the rushing water by the soles of his feet and the tips of his fingers and sheer force of will and how cruel, he thinks. How humiliating.</p>
<p>And still, <em>Jester</em>. Screaming from the shore, the pain in it far worse than the pain of the water.</p>
<p>(It digs into his bones, to every muscle and nerve and synapse he’d crafted and turning his own nature against him. Ripping away his essence with each and every beat of the rushing water.)</p>
<p>And still, she screams, and he half wishes it <em>were </em>possible for him to drown. He would deserve it, and twice over, for all that he had done to her. She cries, and he can hear her wail over the cracking of his bones, the splitting of his skin.</p>
<p><em>I’m sorry</em>, he thinks, and there is fire running down his cheeks. <em>I’m so, desperately sorry. </em></p>
<p>Of course, that is when he slips.</p>
<p>He is wrenched under the water and for one blinding, horrible moment all that exists is <em>pain</em>. He nearly screams with the force of it, but even that the river tears from his lungs, wringing him through. He technically, technically doesn’t need to breathe, but the panic is there anyway, brought about by this form he wears so much more comfortably than any other skin, so close and yet so far from his true nature and even <em>that </em>is being torn from him too.</p>
<p>(He puts no stock in the beliefs of the other fey on the purity of this river. But it is a fey river, nonetheless, and its purpose is swift and cold and cruel.)</p>
<p>The sky has changed when he finally drags himself back up.</p>
<p>He’s almost grateful for the chains, for the iron which is slowly painting his arms black with copper; the only thing keeping him from being lost entirely.</p>
<p>Time is relative, in the Feywild. It has no use, no meaning, not even for one such as him. But there are clouds in the pinkgreen of the sky, and there hadn’t been clouds before.</p>
<p>(A day, he thinks. He must have been here a day, at least.)</p>
<p>Then he slips again.</p>
<p>(Something is <em>wrong</em>.)</p>
<p>He slips, and his head cracks against the trunk and it’s only when he comes back up and there are stars that he realizes what it is.</p>
<p>(he’s not supposed to hurt like this.)</p>
<p>His lungs give out the third time-fourthtimefifthtime?</p>
<p>His lungs give out and as the water rushes in the only thing left for him to feel is terrified.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Devil's Backbone- The Civil Wars</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. and the days will become endless (and never, and never turn to night)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Long before my fall from grace<br/>For a piece of me, they appeared<br/>From the throat, I'm tied to you<br/>All of us, we're cracked in two</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings for torture, blood, mentions of vomit and flashbacks.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ok, what do we know? Where…where would they take her?”</p><p>Caleb is trying to be analytical, unaffected, and for once, Veth is grateful for it. It’s the only thing keeping her from shrieking- never mind the arrows she had split, breaking them between her fingers for the frustration. The fear.</p><p>“Yes, right!” she cries, ignoring the way Fjord glares at her. “Let’s focus on the <em>facts</em>. This moon-god--”</p><p>“Sehanine,” Yasha says quietly.</p><p>“Sure.” Veth waves a hand and ignores the way her stomach clenches. The way Beau’s jaw and fists clench. “She said that the Traveler was supposed to face some sort of punishment?”</p><p>“For impersonating a god,” Caduceus rumbles. “Among other things.”</p><p>(His voice is as calm as ever, but his ears are twitching.)</p><p>“Artagan.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>(Veth isn’t quite used to <em>not </em>having ears that twitch, anymore. Not being able to turn and catch the tiniest sound.) She has to turn her head to actively catch Beau’s voice, and even then she still misses the way it cracks.</p><p>“You called him the Traveler,” she snaps, and her eyes are steely and distant with anger. “He’s not the fucking Traveler…he’s not a <em>god</em>. Just some shitty asshole fey who thought he could manipulate his way to becoming one.”</p><p>“Well,” Caduceus muses, and Veth’s neck protests her rapid movement. “I suppose you could say he’s <em>a </em>traveler, just not <em>the </em>traveler, in that case.”</p><p>“Sure if you wanna argue the fucking semantics, Cad!”</p><p>Caleb mutters something in Zemnian, and Yasha’s shoulders tremble with sorrow, and Veth wants to shoot something- some<em>one</em>- only she broke all her arrows and the rest are back at the village.</p><p>(It’s hard to be half of the world’s greatest detective agency when your other half is missing.)</p>
<hr/><p>Something is <em>wrong</em>.</p><p>Jester scrambles to her feet, and the grass beneath her is impossibly blue, the sky above her mottled green with clouds.</p><p>(It would be beautiful, if she hadn’t resolved to hate it so much.)</p><p>“It’s been too long,” she mutters. She’d meant it for herself but somehow she is heard, as laughter peals forth and a fey appears at her shoulder.</p><p>“Barely a day,” it says.</p><p>It’s impossible to tell, with the way the sky is, with the way their voices reflect nothing but cruelty and mirth, what is true in that. If she’s truly been here for a day (if <em>he’s </em>truly been there a day…) His head breaks the surface in shuddering, awful starts, his pale face mottled almost as heavily as the sky above with bruises.</p><p>And that’s not right at all, that sends shivers down her spine far worse than even the water had because for all her time that she had known him, she’d never the Traveler hurt before. The closest maybe had been that time she’d tried to climb out her window once to sneak off at the tail end of a storm. She’d slipped, and then just as suddenly had not slipped, and instead she’d looked to see the Traveler on the ground in her place. He’d looked like a kid, then, like her, except his hair had been softer and less frizzy and he smiled a lot more. When she’d finally made it to the ground, far more carefully, he had been on his feet. (One of which had made a suspicious sort of popping sound before he’d settled his weight on it with ease.)</p><p>But now…now she can see that the chains have torn his shoulders out of place, the cuffs have split his wrists- split his arms- cracking his skin open so thoroughly it’s a wonder it hasn’t… (she’d thought too soon; she can see the edge of bone just there.)</p><p>“He isn’t healing.”</p><p>“Of course not,” a fey snaps, and they sound far too satisfied considering that Jester is moments from snapping their neck. “That would defeat the purpose, after all.”</p><p>Jester pretends not to know just how the edge of the fey’s gossamer clothing had caught fire, seared through with a radiant flame. She marches up to the edge of the river and steels herself and pushes further. Immediately, her feet go numb, her body goes numb, and it takes everything in her not to give in to the shock of it; the way it seems to be trying to leech her very soul from her body.</p><p> “Hey!” She screams blindly into the foam as the river slaps across her face. “Artagan! Quit fucking around and get better already!”</p><p>The river throws her back onto the shore, and she’s almost grateful, as the shivering wracks her body with agony. She angles her head and looks towards the trunk, tries to scan over his face…which is still bruised. His shoulders still so horribly out of place, his skin still split and spilling more and more blood into the river, the river with continues to leech more and more and more.</p><p>(She realizes, quite horribly, what they fey had meant when they’d said it would cleanse him.)</p>
<hr/><p>They’re tearing each other apart, and even Caduceus’ patience was at its limit. It was like old family squabbles, except never before had a member of the family not been present for the argument, and it just felt hollow and redundant and pointlessly pained. He breathes in the warm air, almost suffocating, even as far from the volcano as they’d gotten. There’s just a hint of salt behind it, the ocean making itself known even now, and while it stirs vague thoughts of the things that lurk beneath the sea, Caduceus lets it calm him instead of worry him.</p><p>
  <em>Do you know where they are? </em>
</p><p>The warmth of the volcano increases, the stifling heat almost making him choke as it fills his nostrils. It is a positive warmth almost as much as it is troubling, troubled, and he frowns pensively.</p><p>
  <em>Can you get us there? </em>
</p><p>The salt of the ocean is bitter, cool and fierce as it lashes against the shore. Somewhere behind him, Beau’s voice pitches with the force of her anger, and Veth shrieks something equally outraged back.</p><p>
  <em>Are they…is Jester safe? </em>
</p><p>Everything stills, almost at once, and it is odd. For all that he <em>knows </em>that the volcano and the ocean are still there, he can no longer actively sense either of them. Static, neutral. Neither exactly positive or negative.</p><p>(It is not a comforting thought.)</p><p>
  <em>Protect them. </em>
</p><p>It is a plea for Jester’s sake more than anything. Caduceus might not entirely approve of everything that the Traveler was or wasn’t; any of the things he had done. But to destroy him would destroy her, and that was the last thing any of them would let happen.</p><p>The wind whips and ruffles up his hair, leaving it tossed at odd angles, and he comforts himself with the thought that at least one deity was on their side.</p><p>(Time would only tell if it would be enough to save them.)</p>
<hr/><p>The Traveler is not a god. </p><p>She knows this even before they pull him from the river. She tries to focus on the way the grass feels, crunchy and soft at the same time under her feet; on the stars she can see in the bluepurplegrey sky, on anything else but Artagan as they drag him out and throw him to the shore. His body makes a hollow, wet noise as it hits at her feet, and she knows that it's wrong even before she sees the bruises. (Even before she realizes he is not breathing.) </p><p>She's screaming, and she's been doing a lot of that lately, but it spills from her throat regardless. Curses and hexes and pain, as the fey ignore her and swarm him, kicking. It's on the third blow to his back that he jerks sharply, heaving, and the fourth and fifth that have him lurching onto his side and retching. (He vomits an awful mix of water and blood onto her shoes, and the only thing she can think is that even then the water is still freezing.)</p><p>The fey lock her away in a cell for a time, joking something about pets that shouldn’t be left unsupervised. The thought that there would be a place to hold cells such as these in the Feywild outweigh the odd clinging terror that the chains bring<em>. She hears screaming, muffled and raw, hears laughter and the sizzle of hot metal to skin, and the lashing of whips and the awful, wrenching cries that accompany it and Yasha is gasping, biting off cries between her teeth in brutal, heaving exhales and whatever they’re doing must be terrible, to make even </em>her <em>make such a noise, and —</em></p><p>She has to remind herself that this not then, that she’s not even on Exandria anymore, let alone in the Iron Shepherds’ grasp.</p><p>(It’s harder to remember when she hears screaming from outside of her own head.)</p><p>*</p><p>“I'm going to kill them,” Jester tells him, his forehead pressed in the crook of her neck. “Every last one of them, and you're going to help me so you have to get better, damn it.”</p><p>His wounds don’t close, and Jester thinks that perhaps threats of violence aren’t conducive for healing words.  </p><p>“I should never have dragged you into this,” he says in place of her failed healing. “It was selfish of me, and far more cruel than anything they could have come up with.”</p><p>“You didn't drag me anywhere,” she argues, her stomach clenching. “I held onto you. I've always held on.”</p><p>The Traveler is not a god. She knows this because gods cantt lose their powers, but then what did that make him? What did that make her, if her powers had never truly been from a divine source, was she even a cleric? Had she ever been, truly. He’s not a god- not in the way that Ioun and the Stormlord or the Moonweaver are. But even then, Ioun hadn’t always been a god. She remembers Beau telling her that, knows that there’s another deity that hasn’t always been and what had been so wrong about Artagan becoming a god anyway? </p><p>Responsibility. He hadn’t wanted the responsibility. (He’d been responsible for her, though. Had been since she was a child, so what did that make him, now?)</p><p>“An archfey,” he tells her. His voice crackles in the dark of their shared cell, throat raw from being torn apart by the river.</p><p>She hadn’t asked, not in words, but he tilts his head and his lips twitch at her knowingly, and it’s almost a relief that a part of him is still the same.</p><p>“I am- was- an archfey.”</p><p>“So you’re like…a king, or something?”</p><p>He almost laughs, and she considers it a success. Then his expression falls and his eyes go cold again. (They used to be green.)</p><p>“No, not quite,” he murmurs. “Not necessarily above, just…<em>more</em>. More land, more names, more power, more chaos. More freedom.”</p><p>Freedom is a cruel word, she thinks, considering their situation.</p><p>Hope is another, but she speaks it anyway.</p><p>“They’ll come for us. The Mighty Nein.”</p><p>“They’ll come for <em>you</em>,” he corrects, and she scowls sharply, gripping the torn edges of his cloak tightly.</p><p>“For <em>both </em>of us!” she insists, and he smiles.</p><p>(It doesn’t reach his eyes, gray and cold as they are.)</p><p>“Let’s hope.”</p>
<hr/><p>They cut off his hair on the second day. She thinks it’s the second day. She doesn’t truly want to know how long it’s actually been since the river; how long by Exandrian days they’d left him to drown, again and again while they’d <em>laughed</em>. They cut off his hair and when she tries to protest, they threaten to drown her too. Not in so many words, but the intent is there, along with the realization that Artagan’s name means nothing now, to them, that his vow he’s sworn had held only as long as the river had let him. (It hadn’t been very long at all.)</p><p>She tries to tell him that he still looks handsome. It is not a lie, but her voice wavers too much and she knows that his hair had <em>meant</em> something to him, had been important. Had been just as wild and untamed as he was and to lose that, more than anything else, she knows, just serves to further destroy whatever it was that had been inside him. Whatever it was that she herself had drawn her own strength, her own power from.</p><p>The third day-fourthfifthsixth? is the worst. They’re dragged out of the cage and the Feywild seems so much brighter than it had before. Jester wonders if the sky is any reason for it, a bright, yellowred, so vibrant it seems to soak everything below with it, the colors bleeding and blurring together until it’s sickening. Or perhaps she is just so sickened by this place, by its people and its creatures and its traumas.</p><p>But they are dragged out, and there is some sort of a party taking place, and she realizes the point of it when one of the fey holds up a mask. The face is a grotesque mockery of Artagan, if the cut of the cheekbones and orange framing of paint like hair and the bright, unnatural green dots of eyes in any indication. They want her to put it on him, and at first she doesn’t understand why. Then she feels the weight of it, and notes the leather straps and buckles and metal bits- feels a twisting lurch in her stomach as she cuts her hand on one of the metal pieces. A bit, an <em>actual</em> bit like for a horse, and she recognizes the intent for what it is.</p><p>She refuses, because of course she does, she’s not going to do this to him! But then that one particularly cruel fey steps forward, anticipation shining bright in those purple sapphire eyes, and no- no she can’t let them do that to him.</p><p>There is nothing but trust and sorrow and resignation in his eyes when she turns to him, trembling, and for a moment she hates him. Sharp and terrible and raw she <em>hates </em>him. How can he just stand there, how can he just stand there and do nothing and why would he expect her to accept this? But then she sees that he is trembling, too, and that just makes it worse.</p><p>“Don’t you cry,” he whispers, sharp and fierce even as his own eyes glint bright and grey. “Don’t you <em>dare</em>.”</p><p>“I can’t-” she protests, fingers twisting the leather and metal monstrosity between her fingers. “Artagan…”</p><p>“I trust you,” he whispers back, lowering his head so she can reach. If it also means he can press his forehead to hers, can trace his lips carefully over her brow, well. Only the two of them could say.</p><p>(His trust doesn’t make it any easier, sliding the cold leather over his head.)</p><p>“I’m so terribly sorry, my dear,” he says.</p><p>It is the very last thing he says to her.</p><p>As his teeth and lips close over the metal his eyes flash sharp with pain. She realizes that it hadn’t just been her carelessness that had caused it to cut her hand, and the clarity of intent is enough to make her own blood want to stop altogether.</p><p>There is a bell attached to the mask.</p><p>She discovers why almost immediately, when his head lifts from her hands and it rings out, crisp and far too bright. The fey <em>laugh</em>, and Artagan flinches, recoiling from it, and she hates them all the more, for turning such a thing against him. For turning <em>her </em>against him. He hums, soft sounds and broken syllables low in his throat that she realizes, when he presses his forehead into her shoulder, is her name. There’s not enough give for him to do more than that, not with how it’s designed, even with her best efforts to keep the straps loose.</p><p>The fey catch onto her ‘mercy’ after a time, and what even is time anymore? it moves impossibly quickly, doesn’t it, yet moves so slow and even <em>then</em> it is all relative, in the Feywild. The mask loosens just enough that he can finally unclench his jaw around the bit, and he shudders and spits enough crimson it’s almost as if he’d been brought back out of the river. They tighten the mask, to the point where he can’t even hum her name, and she hates them for taking even that away from him too. Away from her.</p><p>She tries another healing word.</p><p>“I hate them. They’re all going to die for this, I promise.”</p><p>It doesn’t work and she doesn’t bother to ponder on the philosophy if it’s because of the intent for violence behind her words. She knows better now.</p><p>They take the mask off less than a ‘week’ later, after they’d grown bored, tired of parading him through the Feywild, mute and no longer able to spill lies. Less than week, they try and reassure her. The sheer ruin that is his teeth and his tongue and his mouth disagree.</p><p>They take pity, on her at least, and fix that much. (The scars remain- awful, brutal things across his lips and his cheeks and his throat.)</p><p>Not a sound passes from him even with the mask off, and he presses his forehead to the hollows of her shoulder and trembles.</p><p>They’re not finished, not by any stretch of imagination. She has to hand it to them, their imagination. They are vastly creative and nigh limitless with their cruelty, their mockery. (All he’d wanted was to make people laugh. Well, the fey do not know how to stop.)</p><p>She’d thought they’d stripped everything from him, with the river, with the mask, with the irons and chains. She hadn’t thought it was possible to strip emotions from a person, as well. Useless, weak, vile, <em>human </em>emotions, they say. Corrupting and tainting his true nature with something he is not. They tear his emotions from his body and lock them away somewhere and the entire time she listens to Artagan scream and the only thing she can think is that this is all her fault, her fault for teaching him how humans felt, teaching him <em>how </em>to feel and he screams and she can only think that hey he’s using his voice now and after so long of silence and he screams and he screams and he screams.</p><p>It’s in this state that Frumpkin finds her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dressed to Suppress- Metric</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. then it's just too much (i cannot get you close enough)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Where did you go?<br/>I should know, but it's cold<br/>And I don't want to be lonely<br/>So show me the way home<br/>(Even if it's just a lie)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Not even rescue missions can go off completely without a hitch.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Frumpkin finds her, and for a moment she thinks she’s hallucinated him.</p><p>(Lorenzo had been in her cell earlier that afternoondayweekyear, grinning that sick grin of his and leering down at her.)</p><p><em>Fjord had howled curses from beneath his gag, kicking uselessly out, forcing the slaver’s attention from her. They’d taken a tooth for that, and the awful sounds that Fjord had made had been nothing in comparison to the utter lack of sound from Yasha; Yasha, who had gone far too quiet the day before and had remained so, but that still hadn’t stopped Lorenzo from entering her cell, from entering </em>Jester’s<em> from—</em></p><p>Frumpkin bites her hand, and she makes his fur stand on end from the cold for it.</p><p>“Caleb?” she hisses, when the ice has melted from his orange fur.</p><p>But no, the Cat’s eyes are green, bright and unnaturally vibrant, and she’s almost grateful that it’s not Caleb peering from behind them with his own blue, not able to see what state she’s in. She’s almost resentful, seeing the bright green in Frumpkin’s eyes and knowing that she could no longer see the same in Artagan’s.</p><p>There’s a note attached to Frumpkin’s collar, and he licks her hand where he’d bitten her while she reads it.</p><p>
  <em>‘Jester, I am a fool, and I am sorry it has taken so long…’</em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘Frumpkin is of the fey! He has been tracking you every second that he could for the past three days and yet…’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘We are coming. If you have gotten this note it means that we’re close. You just have to hold on a little longer, ja? You will have to poof him, but Frumpkin is clever, far cleverer than I- he will lead us right to you.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘Stay…’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘Caleb and the Mighty Nein’ </em>
</p><p>The note is torn, half crossed out and half just weathered by the elements, but she rereads it twice, then a third and fourth time. She almost tears it to pieces, but instead she tucks it into her boot.</p><p>Three days.</p><p>(She won’t admit to Caleb how easy it is for her to poof Frumpkin</p><hr/><p>“Jes?”</p><p>There had been screaming again, but now it’s quiet, and Beau sounds far too scared for quiet.</p><p>“Beau?”</p><p>She’s crying, and Beau is almost crying, but instead she grips the bars across from her and turns her head and shouts.</p><p>“Fjord! Caleb! She’s here!”</p><p>Artagan is here too, Jester wants to point out, but Beau is too busy picking the lock and cursing as her pins snap and then just as suddenly the bars are open and Beau is <em>there</em>, flinging her arms around Jester and squeezing tight and oh. Beau <em>is </em>crying.</p><p>“It’s alright,” she whispers, and her voice is cracking almost as badly as if she had been thrown into the river as well. “We’re getting you out of here, Jes. It’s gonna be alright.”</p><p>Jester nods into Beau’s shoulder for just a moment, letting herself almost indulge in it except she had said <em>you </em>and not <em>both of you </em>and—</p><p>“Artagan is here too,” she says, and Beau pulls back and blinks.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Then she looks, and swears again, hoarsely.</p><p>“Oh, fuck.”</p><p>Beau has to maneuver a bit in the cramped space, because Jester won’t let go of him, even to get up, and she can see something flash in the girl’s eyes and Jester takes a breath to tell her to just <em>say it.</em></p><p>“Beau?!” Fjord chooses that moment to bellow out, so close and yet not close enough. “Where are you guys?”</p><p>“Down here!” Beau shouts back, having the kindness to lean away so she does not scream in Jester's ears. “Uh...Artagan is here, too.”</p><p>“What?” Fjord says, and suddenly he's there, brow furrowed in confusion that quickly melts to relief on seeing Jester. “But then who...what was that that Caleb found?”</p><p>Jester knows. It slams into her sharp and sudden like a blow, and she gasps, making Beau flinch.</p><p>“Beau, hold him!” She cries, shifting around towards the door so that Artagan is now closer for Beau to grab.</p><p>“Uh...” she stammers, but he is already in her arms before she can finish the protest.</p><p>She fumbles for all of a second before her grip solidifies, and Jester only pauses to give her a soft, grateful look before she bolts. Up the twisting, dimly lit hallway and it’s lined with cages and each one is packed full and someone is screaming- everyone is screaming and- no. No, this hallway is not dim, it is bright, as overbright as everything in the Feywild is and she is <em>over that</em> dammit!</p><p>Caleb’s voice, from a separated space up ahead.</p><p>“Jester?"</p><p>And suddenly Artagan is there, again.</p><p>It is Artagan as he had been, wild haired and wild eyed. Only, it is as if he's been drained of all color entirely, his skin an ashen, almost corpse gray and hair lacking any sort of shade at all. This figure is bound tightly by iron chains and cuffs, and she can see where the cuffs have split the skin of his wrists down to the bone, his arms turned black from the blood. Can see the spaces of his ribs and the bruises patterned between them, a pattern she knows well, having traced her hands over each and every one of them as they'd appeared on Artagan's skin. Can see the lashes that have torn apart what should have been solid and broad shoulders and back, see the red and white and black lines of burns where an iron had been pressed too long too cruel too much to bear and-</p><p>“Jester,” Caleb says, and he is in her line of sight, blocking her view with the solid comfort of his ratty coat. “You do not need to see this.”</p><p>But she does, but she <em>had</em>, each and every mark as it had appeared on Artagan's body, as he’d trembled and writhed with agony in her arms, as he’d stifled his sounds of pain in her shoulder and the only thing she could do was hold him through the worst of it and no wonder, she realizes dizzily. No wonder her healing had never taken hold. (It is impossible, after all, to heal a creature that does not have a soul.)</p><p>She heaves dryly against Caleb’s chest as his arms come around her, and she thinks she might have been screaming again only she is <strong>sick</strong> of that and she turns it into rage, into the promise of death, into fury.</p><p>“Beau!” She screams.</p><p>And Beau is there, Artagan still in her arms. Artagan, as still as he'd been for the past dayweekmonthyear, body finally worn ragged from it all and the mirror-Artagan seems to arch suddenly in its chains and then crumbles, just as suddenly. Her Artagan goes rigid in Beau's arms, Beau, who adjusts her grip accordingly with efficient carefulness. The mirror-Artagan continues to crumple, almost folding oddly in on itself until just as suddenly there is nothing left, just empty chains and iron and blood, and some of the color returns to her Artagan’s face, a soft sigh slipping past his lips.</p><p>“What. The fuck,” Beau mutters, echoed by Fjord, who had come up some time without Jester noticing.</p><p>Caleb is frowning, pensive and puzzling, but Jester thinks that is unimportant compared to getting out of here.</p><p>“Caleb,” she snaps, and Caleb blinks at her, startled.</p><p>“Ja,” he says. He’s still staring at her, and he doesn’t have time for that.</p><p>“You used your teleport to get here, right?”</p><p>“Erm, mostly,” he hedges. “Frumpkin helped...guided us and--”</p><p>“But you can use it to get back, though right? You can get home?”</p><p>“Not quite like that,” he says, but he is still looking at her oddly.</p><p>She has a brief, hysterical thought to contact Essek and convince him to teleport them. <em>Hey Essek, it’s Jester. I know you’re kind of sort of a traitor and criminal and all and we still haven’t figured out what we’re going to do about that but can you come pick us up in the Feywild and transport us back to the Xhorhaus? Thanks! </em></p><p>It would have taken far too many Sendings, slots that she no longer even has access to.</p><p>“We uh, made some friends,” Caleb continues softly. “They are waiting for us in a clearing not too far from here, guarding our way out.”</p><p>“Ok,” she says, letting herself be relieved and comforted by the news and not apprehensive. “Do you think you could…?”</p><p>“I got him,” Caduceus says-</p><p>(Caduceus? When has Caduceus gotten here?)</p><p>The firbolg doesn’t hesitate to scoop Artagan into his arms, and it’s with a start that she realizes he is taller than Artagan, in this state. But his hands and eyes are gentle, understanding as he smiles at Jester, and murmurs softly to Artagan.</p><p>“Well, you’re in a bad way. Don’t worry, we’ll get you sorted out.”</p><p>Lichen blooms like misshapen flowers out of some of the wounds across his face, and others that Jester can’t quite see but knows have taken hold. They spread and bloom and twist, until just as suddenly seeming to burst, withering and shrinking away into mossy crumbles. As they do, she can see that the skin had closed, faint pink scars standing shiny and new in their place as the healing takes its effect.</p><p>“There, that’s better,” Caduceus says, grinning.</p><p>Jester could almost cry. Fjord puts his hands on her shoulders and it’s only then she realizes she had been shaking.</p><p>“Ok,” he says, brisk but solid, strong as he rubs his hands gently along her arms. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, yeah?”</p><p>(Easier said than done, apparently.)</p><p>The Fey are not as keen as Jester would have thought to be rid of Artagan, and there is almost immediately a violent swarm that meets them. The ground lurches beneath her feet, everything spinning sharp and sudden, and for some reason, her body doesn’t quite want to cooperate with her.</p><p>(It’s catching up, suddenly. Three days. A long time and yet no time at all, to the Fey.)</p><p>There are shouts, and she dimly sees flashes of wings; feathers. A bright clash of swords and there’s a thu-wap that she recognizes, and another louder, explosive sound that she does not recognize. There are sparks of white and fur and teeth and claws. Of an impossibly large cat, a massive figure of strength and fury and two, lithe and fluid forms of smoke and bow and arrow.</p><p>(There are is a woman, and a man, and a goliath and a cat waiting for them in the clearing.)</p><p>“Well fuck me,” the woman says. She has raven feathers in her hair. “It really <em>is</em> you.”</p><p>Artagan pauses in Beau’s grasp, and Jester feels him stiffen, and she stiffens too, wary.</p><p>“I said I was going to punch you if I ever saw you again but now I feel like that would just be shitty, considering.”</p><p>The large man grins, eyes flashing with dark mischief.</p><p>“Ooh, I got it!” He says, and then he strides forward in two quick steps and punches Artagan hard across the face. It would have been enough to topple him, if it weren’t for Caduceus and Yasha and Beau (<em>What? Yasha? Hadn’t she been screaming, a second ago?</em>), and Jester feels that hot rage sink low in her gut as she snarls at the big man.</p><p>“That was for Vax,” he says lowly. Then he grins, and Artagan huffs a soft noise that Jester realizes only when she looks at him is a laugh and not pain.</p><p>His eyes are an odd sort of thing, fond and mournful and grateful all at once. ‘It's good to see you too’ his eyes say, and Jester frowns, whipping her head back around to their strange companions.</p><p>“I thought we were supposed to be friends,” she accuses.</p><p>“Are we?” The man says thoughtfully, icy blue eyes observing them behind round glasses.</p><p>The woman touches his arm with a murmured, “Percival,” and the cat shifts and is suddenly another woman with fiery red hair and wait, that’s not <em>fair. </em></p><p>“I kinda want to punch you too,” she says, and her voice is soft and hard all at once. “I don’t have nearly the amount of reservation for feeling shitty that Vex does.”</p><p>“Um,” Fjord says, hands out placatingly, even as Jester starts to pull her dagger out again. “Maybe…maybe let’s not…do more punching?”</p><p>“Right,” the woman says, and her demeanor shifts, becoming drawn inwards and suddenly full of the reserve she had claimed to lack. “After all, you guys did save my mother.”</p><p>(This was not how Jester planned on meeting Vilya’s daughter at all.)</p><p>*</p><p>There are pools in the clearing, and Caleb insists that it’s fine, that they lead to other realms and more specifically, to <em>their </em>realm and to home. That doesn’t stop Jester from being cautious as she dips her toe in, doesn’t stop Artagan from bucking hard against Yasha, eyes wide and terrified, and it’s only when she doesn’t feel that leeching cold that she’s able to blurt out in agreement with Caleb.</p><p>“It’s not water!” she tries. “It’s ok, I promise!”</p><p>There are odd looks on faces, and a cocked head from Vilya’s daughter, perched as a red-furred squirrel on the other woman- Vex’s- shoulder.</p><p>“Hang on, I got something for that,” Caduceus rumbles, and Jester doesn’t like the way resentment feels like a snake in her chest.</p><p>(She resents anyway, that Caduceus was doing all of the things that she was supposed to, that she had taken for granted before but which she would have given anything to be able to do now.)</p><p>Caduceus presses his palms gently to Artagan’s back and murmurs something soft that Jester can’t quite hear, over the throbbing of her heart and the rush of the not-water and the roar of fury in her ears. The result is Artagan going pliant and still in Yasha’s arms, and in Jester finding herself restrained in Beau’s, and she realizes only after the fact that it’s because she’d nearly thrown herself at Caduceus.</p><p>“Sleep,” Caduceus explains calmly, understanding and forgiving as he turns to her. “Just something to make the trip a little easier.”</p><p>(The trip is not, in fact, any easier.)</p><p>Mostly because they have to drop off their new ‘friends’ along the way, and Caleb insists on stopping to transcribe a circle, just in case. But then, the familiar rush of warmth and light and the solid feeling of wood beneath her feet, the creaking beams and the knobbled bark of their tree and <em>home</em>. Everything blurs at once after that, and the last thing Jester remembers thinking is that she thinks she liked their last rescue mission a lot better than this one.</p><p>(At least she’d been unconscious for that one.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ilomilo- Billie Eilish</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. born again with each sunrise (hurts in ways i can't describe)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I let him sleep, and as he does<br/>My held breath fills the room with blood<br/>Hurts in ways I can't describe<br/>My heart bends and breaks so many, many times<br/>And is born again with each sunrise<br/>And is born again with each sunrise</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Who said healing was easy?<br/>-<br/>This chapter contains unhealthy coping mechanisms, dark thought processes, torture, aftermath of torture and torture recovery, as well as self-loathing, flashbacks, panic attacks, descriptions of injuries, and intentional injury of a friend as a form of self-harm. Nothing too explicit, but it *is* there, so do be careful while reading!</p><p>- Raven</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Healing, as it turns out, is hard.</p><p>Jester wakes up to find that she’d been asleep for a week.</p><p>Or, rather. She wakes up. She ends up finding out about the rest from Caleb, the only one of the Nein who will tell her.</p><p>(She’d thought she’d have found out from Beau.)</p><p>“Hey, you're awake!” Beau had said, blue eyes bright despite the odd, tired cast to them.</p><p>“How long was I out?” Jester had said, promptly followed by: “Where's the Tra- Artagan?”</p><p>“Ah, not too long,” Beau had said. “Don’t worry about it.”</p><p>Jester might not have, except Beau had shifted her weight too much, and scratched at her undercut, and had absolutely not looked Jester in the eyes.</p><p>(Also, the way she had said ‘don't worry about it,’ as if that also meant ‘don't worry about <em>Artagan</em>.’ Which of course, just made her worry more.)</p><p>She’d tried Fjord next, but he’d simply pulled a Caduceus and said that she’d slept as long as she needed to and the important thing was that she was awake now.</p><p>Caduceus, for his part, was nowhere to be found, though Caleb and Veth were in the library. They’d jumped when she’d entered, only slightly wobbly, then Veth had leapt from Caleb’s shoulder to cling to Jester’s waist. She’d been crying, and Jester didn’t want to admit that she had, too. Especially when Caleb had come up and put a hand on her shoulder, whispering choking Zemnian, and Frumpkin had wound around her ankles.</p><p>(Apparently, Frumpkin was too good of a fey Cat to hold grudges.)</p><p>Caleb had told her that she’d been sleeping for nearly five whole days (and several hours and a handful of very specific minutes), but even <em>he</em> had hedged when she’d asked about Artagan. Veth caved, because Jester was her partner in crime. (And also because she’d threatened to sabotage her flask.)</p><p>Which is how Jester had found herself in Yasha’s room, somehow. In Beau’s arms, which is weird because Beau hadn’t been there a second ago and for a moment she is back in the Feywild. <em>The fey dart in and out of her vision, always flitting between the spaces of shadow where she somehow can and can’t see them and that hadn’t been there a second ago and someone is screaming and time doesn’t exist and nothing makes any sense.</em></p><p>Then Beau squeezes her just a little bit tighter, and despite the slight twinge of pain she can breathe again.</p><p>Or, almost.</p><p>Because Artagan was lying in Yasha's bed. Yasha, who was currently restraining Artagan in much the same way that Beau was restraining Jester, only the difference was that Jester was conscious. Artagan was most assuredly not, and Caduceus was kneeling by the bed, sleeves rolled up over his bare, furry arms, a slew of bandages and bowls and towels and medicines and plants scattered around him. (The towels are stained heavily with blood.)</p><p>“Jes, Jester, you need to calm down.”</p><p>Beau's voice is shaky, but her hands are strong, keeping Jester from breaking out. “Everything's alright, I promise. Caduceus is <em>helping</em> there's no need to--”</p><p>Beau's voice falters, and so do her hands, as Jester releases a burst of necrotic energy in a sharp elbow to Beau's ribs. The warm brown skin cracks and splits as the dark energy takes hold, and Beau grits her teeth against the pain but the <strong>inflict wounds</strong> wins out and there’s a hiss from Beau as blood spills out over the edges of the darkened curse wound and Jester is <em>free</em> and running across the room and-</p><p>Yasha.</p><p>Even that small burst of magic somehow proved to be too much as she staggers, balance thrown from the expense, and she doesn't even pretend to think she could fight her way out of Yasha's grip.</p><p>“Beau?” Yasha says softly.</p><p>“I'm fine,” Beau mutters, but there's something tight and strained in her voice. Jester turns her head enough to see her getting back to her feet from the floor, wincing as she presses a hand to her still bleeding side. “Shit, Jes, if you'd wanted me on my knees, all you had to do was ask.”</p><p>Yasha rolls her eyes and Caduceus' lips twitch fondly and Beau goes entirely red and shuts her mouth tight as if realizing just what she'd said.</p><p>(Jester will turn it over and over in her head. Later. Much, much later.)  The ease in which the admission, even in innuendo, had come from Beau's mouth. The lack of surprise from Yasha or Caduceus at the words. The way Beau had gone red but also the way her eyes had gone <em>wide</em> as if caught. (The way the thought of it, Beau on her knees for her, is not an entirely unappealing one.)</p><p>But in that moment, all she does is scream for Artagan.</p><hr/><p>Caduceus explains that his healing, for whatever reason, is refusing to take full hold.</p><p>“I can take the edge off, ease the worst of it,” he says. “But any deeper than that...”</p><p>He demonstrates, placing a hand to a wound on Artagan's side and murmuring a soft prayer. Yasha steps back up and places her hands firmly over Artagan's arms and a knee to his abdomen again and at first Jester starts to protest. Then the healing takes hold and she realizes why she'd done it in the first place, as he arches against her hands in quick, desperate bucks that is stopped by her grip, and after a moment of thrashing his body finally settles down into the blankets once more. Jester can see that despite his lack of consciousness his entire expression is still twisted sharply in pain, and that as Caduceus shifts back and away, his hand comes back stained red.</p><p>“I don't know why,” he says gravely. “Where one thing heals, another simply becomes worse. I’ve mostly had to resort to the old fashioned bandages and poultices and the like, but even then....”</p><p>“Even then?”</p><p>He doesn’t answer.</p><p>He doesn’t need to. Jester can see for herself.</p><p>*</p><p>They’d taken his cloak off to heal him.</p><p>He looks…almost plain without it. Boring. <em>Human</em>.</p><p>Jester knows that it was for a purpose, but she still can’t help but resent them for it, just a little. Not even the fey had stripped that from him; hadn’t made him suffer <em>that </em>particular indignity. At least, to her knowledge. She’d been alone for a while before they’d seen fit to throw Artagan in with her, battered and shivering and far too silent. He is silent now, though not for lack of trying- it had been almost two weeks and he <em>still </em>hadn’t woken up.</p><p>Caduceus had pointed out the thin, nearly invisible lines carved white and with purpose across his body, and said that there was something there that was keeping his full healing from taking effect. It was also, they’d learned, keeping Artagan’s own innate magic in check, buried deep and unusable to the point where it was as if he’d never been a magical being in the first place.</p><p>(She very nearly wants to return to the Feywild. She is not as versed in fire magic as Caleb, but she doesn’t want to rest until ever last inch of the place has been expunged.)</p><hr/><p><em>Her</em> magic, at least, was returning. Slowly, but surely, and she helps Caduceus and Yasha in their healing and <strong>inflicts wounds</strong> on any who try to tear her away. Beau still manages a few times, however, gritting her teeth against the necrotic energy and forcing Jester into a bed and under covers; wraps her own arms tight around her and doesn’t let go even when Jester leaves her bloody and bruised, until she has no choice but to sleep.</p><p>Jester always apologizes in the morning- always heals with her fingers fluttering shakily over Beau’s skin and closing the cursed wounds with half-hearted words and careful, brushing kisses: across Beau’s chin, or temple, or cheek. And always, Beau just twists her lips in a grin and brushes it off and says she’d do it again in a heartbeat if it means that Jester is well and whole and healthy and cared for. It’s so much more than she deserves, and she doesn’t know how to tell Beau that; doesn’t know how to stop the way it feels like admitting it feels like a hot coal in her throat. (Doesn’t know how to stop <strong>inflicting wounds</strong>, either; how she reaches for it first and always because it’s the most painful thing she has, when she casts it high enough, <em>means</em> it enough. How she’d hurt for so long and held that all in but now all she wants is for someone to <em>understand</em> just how much- to inflict just as much pain so they have no choice but to know.)</p><p>The others know.</p><p>They don’t <em>know</em> but they see it. They pity her and fear her in odd turns; sees the way Veth scurries away if she catches herself in Jester’s line of sight; sees the way Fjord frowns when she comes down in the morning, Beau’s skin no longer cracked open but still tight and tender in the way that only a still healing wound is; sees the way Yasha stares at her almost calculatingly, as if wondering when enough will be enough and she will have to do something about Jester; sees the way Caleb <em>knows</em>, and hates him for it.</p><p>(Sees the way Beau <em>knows, </em>and can’t bring it in herself to hate her for it.)</p><hr/><p>“This has to stop,” Caduceus says one day.</p><p>She’d stopped going to Caleb to check what day it was after…well, she’s pretty sure it was last week. He kept giving her these looks; nothing bad, just…patient and knowing and almost expectant, like he was waiting for her to ask him something else. She thinks she knows exactly what it is, and she can’t stand the thought of it in her head let alone bear to actually put it into any format to be spoken out loud. So she doesn’t know <em>exactly </em>what day it is, but it’s somewhere between two and three weeks since she’d woken up and Artagan had not.</p><p>“What does?” Jester presses, panic flooding through her far too quickly to serve any effective purpose. It’s only fair, considering that he says it while in the middle of healing Artagan; which, like the panic, was still unfortunately not as effective.</p><p>“Pain is…like a weed. It will always end-you’ve got to fight it, but it will end. But if you let it fester it will overtake your entire garden until there is nothing left.”</p><p>Jester wants to retort, wants to snap what does <em>Caduceus </em>know of pain? Then she remembers a different garden, and a different deity, and a golden bull and Caduceus’ family in shattered statues.</p><p>“It’s not the same,” she still manages to force out through her teeth.</p><p>Caduceus just nods, and the worst is the <em>understanding </em>in his eyes as he says “I know.”</p><hr/><p>Beau points out one day that the section of bruising along Artagan’s lower back that had been giving them the worst trouble is actually not bruising at all.</p><p>“It’s burns,” she says, blunt as ever but still apologetic when she catches Jester’s eye. “Iron to be exact.”</p><p>Caduceus hums in sharp displeasure, floppy ears pinning to his head briefly. “Of course,” he says, and it’s the closest to bitter he’s ever sounded.</p><p>Iron.</p><p><em>She is thousands of miles away, and there are bars crisscrossing the cage surrounding her, and there is the sharp, tangy smell of heating metal and a flame-white rod slipping between bars somewhere to her left. </em>Yasha<em> is to her left, and though she still hasn’t made a sound through all that they had done to her, the searing metal pierces deep enough through skin and muscle and scraping bone that even muffled through her teeth, Jester can still hear the way Yasha </em>howls<em> with choking agony—her head throbs with the force of her own scream when the metal scrapes cruelly against her collarbone; the seconds it takes Fjord to wriggle across the floor before </em>kicking <em>out against the Shepherd holding it stretched into brutal eternity. They beat him for that, kicking at him with their thick boots like he’d kicked with his bare, broken feet; kicked until he’d finally succumbed to it. Then they’d forced a healing potion down his throat and done it again. They’d made her beg for them to heal him….</em></p><p>
  <em>“Jes-Jester!”</em>
</p><p>She’s—</p><p>“Hey, it’s ok, you’re alright, just keep breathing for me, ok?”</p><p>She doesn’t understand.</p><p>“That’s good, Jester. Nice and <strong><em>calm</em></strong>, now.”</p><p>The soothing lilt of Caduceus’ voice washes over her and she stills against Beau, her back easing into the other girl’s chest as a steady breath fills her.</p><p>“Thank fuck,” Beau breathes, her breath warm against the top of Jester’s head, stirring some of the hair from her face. “Just keep breathing like that for a sec, ok, Jes?”</p><p>Beau’s own breathing, by strange contrast, is harsh and ragged, like after a particularly good spar. (Or sometimes, like in the times when Yasha reciprocates her flirtations.) But Beau hasn’t sparred, and Yasha is nowhere to be found, and Jester doesn’t understand.</p><p>“That one really came out of nowhere this time didn’t it?” Beau quips, and Jester tilts her head back to scrunch her face up at Beau.</p><p>“What are you talking about?”</p><p>They’re sitting on the floor, Jester pressed tight to Beau’s chest, Beau’s legs crossing over Jester’s own and pinning her thoroughly in one place. It’s uncomfortable and vulnerable and feels raw in all the ways that the Iron—that <em>that place </em>had left her feeling raw, and she squirms until Beau gets the hint and releases her legs. She doesn’t quite loosen her arms from around Jester though, not until Jester huffs her name pointedly.</p><p>“Are you feeling better now?” Caduceus asks gently, when she scrambles up from the floor. “Thinking a little more clearly?”</p><p>“I don’t--”</p><p>“Jes…that’s the third panic attack you’ve had just today.”</p><p>Beau’s voice is quiet, and also a touch raw, and Jester almost wishes she had cast <strong>inflict wounds </strong>instead of asking nicely for Beau to let her go. If she had, she couldn’t be picked apart so easily by her words like she is now.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Jester snaps.</p><p>(She is not fine.)</p><hr/><p>“Iron burns fairies,” Beau says over breakfast the next day.</p><p>They are both pointedly ignoring the fact that Jester had woken up screaming in the middle of night, or the way that she couldn’t stop shaking, even now.</p><p>“I didn’t know that,” Jester murmurs into her quinoa. It’s got honey and nuts and fruit and it’s wonderful and sweet and <em>too much </em>and <em>she doesn’t deserve this. </em></p><p>“Yeah, that’s why they put those iron bars over top of babies’ cribs and shit- so the fey don’t steal them for changelings.”</p><p>“Are you sure it’s not just to keep the babies from crawling out themselves?” she asks, and Beau snorts in response.</p><p>“Well I’m sure the thought crossed my parents’ minds a bit too. I always used to joke that despite all my dad’s superstitious bullshit, maybe I really <em>was </em>a changeling and that’s why I was just different from them.”</p><p>Despite everything, Jester can’t help but smirk across the table at Beau. She’s so caught up in the amused tilt of Beau’s mouth she doesn’t realize she’d taken a bite of her food until the sharp tang of fruit and honey hits her tongue. For a second, the tang is <em>too sharp and burns like copper </em>and she can’t quite hide the way she chokes. Over the trigger, and the food yes, hands shaking as they lift to clamp tight over mouth, but also just the very thought of Beau in the hands of the fey, an imposter in her place—</p><p>“Yeah,” Beau mutters, and her voice falters in that sharp way it did when she was only ever talking about her father. “He didn’t think it was that funny either.”</p><p>*</p><p>Once they figure out the iron poisoning- Caduceus thinks that that was the main reason they’d been having so much trouble healing him in the first place- it is thankfully, not that hard for Caleb to figure out a counterspell. He insists that it’s not really spellwork in the traditional sense, that this sort of thing shouldn’t technically even be possible and that he was pushing the limits of what the arcane even was. (But he says it all with a near-joyous sparkle in his eyes like when he was getting new paper or books, and Jester doesn’t know if she wants to hate him for thinking only of the ‘arcane’ or be grateful that he was even doing this at all.)</p><p>Regardless, it is with no small amount of anxiety that they gather in Yasha’s room once again. It is just her, Beau, Yasha, Caleb, and Caduceus- at both Caduceus’ and Caleb’s insistence, limiting the amount of potential risk. Risk for what, Jester isn’t entirely sure, but Yasha kneels carefully on Artagan’s abdomen and restrains him again as Caleb traces his painstakingly crafted sigils over Artagan’s body. Beau wraps her arms Jester’s and slips her hand in hers and grips tight, and Jester is grateful for the grounding contact when Caleb begins the ritual.</p><p>She’s not sure how long it takes. Isn’t sure if that is due to her still slipping grasp of time. (Knows that it’s more likely the fact that as soon as the glyphs begin to break Artagan starts to <em>scream</em>, and at that point, it’s all Beau can do to drag her out of the room. She <em>definitely </em>gets off a few more <strong>inflict wounds</strong> and by the time they actually make it out of the room it’s all Beau can do to hold her back.)</p><p>She regrets none of it.</p><p>She regrets <em>all </em>of it, knows on some surface level that Beau is truly only just trying to help, but that deeper, primal, <em>fear </em>part of her is trapped in the Feywild and the only thing she can hear is Artagan’s screaming.</p><p>She’s not sure how long it lasts, but all at once she is back in Yasha’s room and Caduceus is helping a startlingly pale looking Artagan to sit up and—</p><p>She’s got him in her arms in seconds, and there’s a part of her brain that marvels at this odd change in their dynamic; how <em>he’s </em>the one clinging onto <em>her </em>this time.</p><p>(His eyes, when they finally meet, are bright green.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It's the first day of October and ya'll know what that means! (It's almost Halloween, yes, crank the Panic! at the Disco) It means that it's the first day of Whumptober. Consider this chapter my first submission for day 1's prompt: Shaky Hands, and brace yourselves for yet another fic posting that I have absolutely no right starting, seriously somebody stop me the creativity is getting out of hand. Not neccesarily for any one fandom in particular, may span fandoms, might even contain some Original Content, we'll see. Anyway, Day 2 will be out tomorrow, hopefully. If not, expect it before the weekend is out!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. and then it's just too much (the streets, they still run with blood)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Though I know I should know better<br/>I can make this work<br/>Is it just part of the process?<br/>Well, Jesus Christ, it hurts</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Getting better is never easy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Traveler is awake.</p><p>Artagan is awake, and Jester isn’t sure why she still feels so hollow inside. It takes ages to pull her away from his side once he’s finally awake but she can’t help but want to cling and they shouldn’t blame her for that.</p><p>(They don’t, is the thing, and she almost wants them to.)</p><p>It would be easier, she thinks, if the Mighty Nein resented her in any way for what she’d put them through. What <em>Artagan</em>, through her, had put them through. If they held any grudges for her yanking them halfway across the oceans and through dangerous encounters and volcanos and <em>fey</em>, they certainly do a good job of hiding it.</p><p>(If Beau hates her for the times Jester Inflicts Wounds on her in the middle of the night, after the really bad dreams and the memories seep in, well. It’s gone by the time morning comes.)</p><p>It would be easier, if they’d left her to deal with all of this alone. But she thinks the only reason she doesn’t break entirely is the very fact that she knows they’re still there. Still with her and still on her side and still trying to heal Artagan which, really. If she’d had any doubts, that alone should have assuaged them.</p><p>Artagan is awake, and his eyes are bright green. Not unnaturally bright, not quite like they’d been before. There is something missing from them, from him, even now that doesn’t cause them to sparkle like they once had. Jester is just grateful that they’re <em>green</em>, that he’s awake and alive and the sigils keeping him from healing and from his magic are gone and that his eyes are green and not grey.</p><p>(He doesn’t talk.)</p><p>Not a single word or sound had slipped past his lips since he’d woken. Jester had continued to help Caduceus and Yasha heal him until there was nothing left remaining, until every bit of physical evidence of his torment had been scrubbed from his body. The scars still remain, though. The ones from the mask, across his lips and cheeks and the hollows of his throat. Caduceus had frowned pensively at those, and said that some scars weren’t always meant to fully heal, and she nearly resents him for the words underneath that he doesn’t plainly say.</p><p>But Artagan heals, at least, and her magic is almost fully back to what it was, and his is definitely returning, if significantly slower. The rest of the group stop tiptoeing around it, around <em>him</em>, and it’s after a tense and careful week of healing that he actually joins them for breakfast.</p><p>(It’s the weirdest thing Jester had ever experienced, singlehandedly.)</p><p>“Hey,” Beau snaps, and Artagan jerks and stares at her warily across the table. “Pass the butter.”</p><p>He blinks, and stretches a shaky hand over to pass the butter to her, and just like that the tension is gone. There’s idle chatter and jokes and Jester almost lets herself get swept up into it too except…he’s not talking. He doesn’t join in once, not even when Beau makes a very pointed and way too obvious jab at him. Artagan barely blinks at the insult, but Jester yanks Beau aside the minute the meal is done.</p><p>“What the fuck, Beau?” she snaps, fingers twisting furiously in Beau’s robes.</p><p>They’re in the library, and it’s quiet and still and smells like ink and paper and all the wonderful things that books contain.</p><p>(It smells like <em>Beau</em>, and Jester is too pissed to try and figure out the way her stomach flips at the thought.)</p><p>Beau for her part, blinks, and carefully untangles Jester’s hands from her jacket. “What?” she snaps back, but she knows exactly what, and Jester is trying to do better about the whole Inflict Wounds thing but she’s not making it easy.</p><p>“Why are you being so mean to Artagan?” she demands, and Beau won’t look at her.</p><p>“Are we on first name basis with your god now?” she mutters instead of answering, and Jester almost wants to hit her.</p><p>(Another odd, dizzying part of her wants to do something else entirely, and she can’t focus enough on it to make sense of it.)</p><p>“He’s not--”</p><p>That gets Beau’s attention, even if Jester stops herself before finishing. Her blue eyes are sharp and clever and see through everything Jester was trying to say anyway, and she licks her lips before finishing for her.</p><p>“He’s not a god. Not anymore, if he ever even was, right?”</p><p>She’s not wrong. She’s not wrong she’s not wrong she’s not wrong so why does it <em>hurt</em>?</p><p>Jester usually only has one response for when she starts hurting like this, and she’d promised Caduceus she would stop doing that on purpose, and so she stomps across the library and kicks one of Caleb’s chairs. It clatters over with a resounding crack, and that dark, churning part of Jester thinks it’s nothing compared to the sound the Beau’s skin makes when it cracks open. She shoves that part down, because she doesn’t <em>want </em>to hurt Beau and the other part opens up and she doesn’t even know what <em>that </em>want even is.</p><p>“Jes?”</p><p>“I thought they were going to kill him.”</p><p>Beau goes quiet behind her, and she thinks it’s only because of that that she’s able to keep going.</p><p>“I thought they were going to kill him, in the Feywild, and I was so scared because if they had…if they had I would have been alone again and he…he promised me he’d never leave me alone again.”</p><p>It was one of the very first things he’d said to her, when they’d first met. He’d promised to be her friend, promised to show her the world, promised she’d never be alone and that he’d never leave her.</p><p>(And now he doesn’t say anything to her at all.)</p><p>“Jes?” Beau says quietly, and her voice is right behind her all of a sudden. “I’m gonna touch you, that ok?”</p><p>She doesn’t trust her voice enough to answer, so she nods, and then Beau’s not touching so much as holding; wrapping her arms around Jester from behind in a tight hug. It’s not unlike the position Jester usually finds herself in when she wakes in the middle of the night, and there’s something sore and bitter burning at the back of her throat.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Beau whispers in her ear, and Jester feels her shoulders tense subconsciously. “I’m sorry that they took you; that I wasn’t…wasn’t fast enough.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault,” Jester mumbles back, the words feeling hollow in her mouth.</p><p>“It’s not yours, either,” Beau rasps fiercely, and Jester has to swallow hard a few times, eyes burning sharply.</p><p>“And hey,” Beau continues, squeezing once tightly before carefully stepping back. “You’re not alone anymore. You’ve got us.”</p><p>“I’ve got you?” Jester says, picking up on the slight hitch in her voice; all the things she doesn’t say.</p><p>“Yeah. You’ve got me.”</p><p>*</p><p>They head back to the kitchen to find the rest of the party gone except for Fjord, Caduceus and Artagan. Caduceus is washing the dishes, Artagan leaning carefully against the counter beside him and Caduceus rambling something easily about making tea. Fjord is sitting at the table and there’s an odd look on his face as he watches Caduceus and Artagan, and it takes Jester a moment to realize why.</p><p>The dishes are floating.</p><p>Caduceus takes a dish from the air and washes it, and once it’s clean it joins the others floating in the air above Caduceus’ head. It takes Jester another moment to realize that it’s definitely <em>not </em>Caduceus making the dishes float, and then she can’t help the delighted gasp that slips from her lips.</p><p>“Arty, that’s so cool!”</p><p>He freezes, and the dish that had been making its way towards Caduceus freezes too before plummeting suddenly to the floor. It shatters, and he flinches hard and recoils from them sharply,<em> and suddenly Jester is on a yellowred shore and watching helplessly as Artagan drowns and somebody has to do </em>something<em> and—</em></p><p>“Ah shit,” Beau hisses, and Jester blinks and Artagan jerks as Beau crosses the floor and kneels to pick up the plate. “Man,” she groans, gathering porcelain between her fingers. “You couldn’t have broken <em>any </em>other plate? You just had to go and break my favorite one, didn’t you? Asshole. Don’t even know why….”</p><p>She dissolves into low grumbling as she continues, and for a moment Jester reels from the sudden force of how <em>angry </em>she is and the dark, pressing weight of wanting to <em>hurt </em>her for the betrayal. But then she realizes that Artagan is no longer shaking, not recoiling from her as she stands up, too fast and too sharp in his space. Instead he is frowning, almost <em>pouting </em>as he narrows his eyes back at her and then…after a careful pause…he sticks his tongue out at her.</p><p>(Beau makes a show of dropping the plate again just so she can flip him off, and when Artagan’s face twists it’s to let out a breathy sort of noise that is undeniably a chuckle.)</p>
<hr/><p>Jester is awake.</p><p>She's gotten used to waking in the middle of the night, now. Used to waking shaken, or screaming, or cursing. Used to waking with Beau's arms tight around her and her voice whispering hoarse comfort in her ear until she comes back to herself.</p><p>But Beau is still asleep at her side, her arms cling soft and gentle to Jester, and for a moment she nearly settles back down into the embrace. Except she still can't shake the feeling of wrongness, that odd churning in her gut telling her that <em>something</em> is off, and she's squinting through the dark of the room as her eyes adjust and then-</p><p>A soft tap on her shoulder.</p><p>She jerks her head around to come face to face with a glint in the dark, and in seconds she's cast Light on the bedpost, has a defensive spell warming in her palms. (She doesn't have the time to appreciate that it had been a defensive spell she'd reached for first, for once.)</p><p>Artagan is crouching on the floor, peering up at her cautiously and eyeing the magic in her hands warily. Before Jester can think of any adequate response aside from the instinctual panic, Beau shifts at her side.</p><p>“Jes? S'alright. You're safe and...what.”</p><p>She's fully upright before she'd finished talking, and her eyes narrow at the sight of Artagan by the bed.</p><p>“The fuck are you doing here?” She snaps, any trace of sleep gone from her voice.</p><p>Artagan lifts a slight brow at her, but his eyes are taking in the two of them and the bed with an odd expression. Then Beau shifts her weight just a little more, causing the shadows cast by Jester's spell to flicker. It's only because she'd gotten so used to looking for all of his nonverbal cues in their time in the Feywild and in his silence that Jester is able to pick up on the way he flinches.</p><p>(She isn't sure what it is that lets Beau notice, too.)</p><p>Beau's lips press tight and her brows furrow a moment before she says “This is a two person bed, only, sorry. Designed that way, I don't make the rules.”</p><p>Both of Artagan's brows go up at that, and Beau makes a face at him, jerking her head.</p><p>“Yeah no thanks. You're great and all, objectively I guess, but you're not my type.”</p><p>Jester feels her face warm and she's just glad the attention isn't on her right now. If anything it only spurs Artagan as his lips twitch and his eyes spark briefly in something so familiar it hurts and for a second his mouth works, lips pursing and she feels Beau go tense on the bed beside her at the same moment she does. He falters, and the mischievous teasing on his face falls as his expression crumples and no words come out.</p><p>“Fuck, hang on I can't do this,” Beau says, and Jester startles as she suddenly swings her feet around and leaps to the floor.</p><p>(If she notices the way Artagan startles too, Beau doesn't comment on it.)</p><p>“I'll be right back. Just...hang tight or whatever.”</p><p>And then she's gone and for a moment Jester reels from the force of her exit. Then Artagan is carefully climbing into the bed, tucking into the warm spot that Beau had vacated and there's only the briefest hesitation before he clings to her. And just like always, she clings back.</p>
<hr/><p>Beau is used to being woken in the middle of the night by Jester. Used to waking with thrashing limbs and the taste of blood in the back of her throat and the sensation of her skin being ripped open with necrotic energy. Used to swallowing down her own pain to help Jester cope with hers, used to waking exhausted by her side and used to ignoring the looks Fjord sends her across the table every morning in the aftermath.</p><p>What she is not used to is waking to find Artagan crouched carefully on the floor by the bed, Jester already dismissing whatever spell she'd had prepared in her hands.</p><p>(She's not used to seeing anyone but Jester and maybe sometimes Caleb look so haunted, so terrified.)</p><p>When they'd first gotten everyone back to the house after the Feywild, there had been a huge debate over just what to do. Panic had been a huge driving force, no one wanting to fuck up and hurt Jester worse than she'd already been. Except, when they'd finally gotten them back, they'd found that Jester barely had a scratch on her.</p><p>(No one had known what to do with the state Artagan had been in.)</p><p>Caduceus finally settled things by saying that they shouldn't act any differently. That they'd already been through enough and that the last thing they needed while processing and recovering was everyone tiptoeing around or treating them differently. No one had really bothered pointing out that he'd said they, as in, the both of them.</p><p>Beau hadn't understood what he'd meant. At least, not until the Traveler- Artagan, and when had he ever been anything but?- had finally woken up. That hollow look in his eyes...Beau shudders even now to think on it, on the voice in the back of her head that said that maybe that's what Molly had looked like before, when he'd first climbed out of his grave. All naked and hollow and empty. She'd be the first to admit that she hadn't wanted any part of that, not after all that he'd done.</p><p>(But then again, wasn't he just like all of them?)</p><p>It's only that, and the look in his eyes and the pain that Jester was still trying so hard to hide that Beau finds herself doing anything at all. And by that, really, she does nothing. Not like Caduceus and Yasha, who heal in words and gestures and touches. Or Caleb, who studied and researched until he'd found the information on the glyphs and sigils binding his magic.</p><p>(And sure, ok, she'd helped with that but still.)</p><p>If anything, all Beau does it the same as she always has- been an asshole.</p><p>(And sure, ok, Jester had made it very clear just how she felt about that.)</p><p>But the end result was that Artagan flinched less and less, and even laughed without sound and made faces at her teasing, and felt more comfortable using his slowly regaining magic to prank her. Which, really, was sign enough that she wasn't being too terrible to him, if he felt like he could do that without repercussion.</p><p>It also leads to this- Artagan slipping into her room in the middle of the night, silent and terrified and with that hollow, awful, empty look in his eyes.</p><p>She can't do this. At least, not like she had planned. She's gotta do this right.</p><p>Which means-</p><p>“Caleb!”</p><p>She slips into the library and Frumpkin comes running to greet her, chirping softly and jumping to rub at her legs. She almost trips over him he’s so forceful, which means what actually happens is that Beau nearly kicks him, and to avoid doing so, she trips instead. She’s cursing when she gets back up, and Frumpkin is purring on her chest and biting at the ties on her shirt. She tries to pry him off of her, but he digs his claws in and <em>fuck </em>this cat.</p><p>“Frumpkin!” she hisses, and he blinks at her. “Fuck, just chill out.”</p><p>He purrs again, but when she starts to leave the library with him, he bites her hand. She drops him, and <em>he</em> has the nerve to look offended, meowing at her ankles. She gets the hint after he bites her ankle and then darts off into the stacks of books, and it’s not until she’s cursed him out thoroughly that she follows.</p><p>To find Caleb, face blank in sleep, curled up on the floor. No less than two books are open in his lap, and a third is half sliding off his head. She’s not sure, with the angle his neck is, how the thing hasn’t fallen already, but that’s not really her concern.</p><p>Her concern, once she’s this close and can see, it that Caleb’s face is blank, but he’s not asleep. She wouldn’t have even been able to tell that he was breathing if it weren’t for the catches and hitches she can hear in the pattern of it, and what was <em>with </em>this all of a sudden? How’d she end up being the one picked to deal with this shit when they had a perfectly good Caduceus on the next floor?</p><p>She kicks Caleb's foot lightly with her own, ready to jump back if he were to lash out. Instead he starts, eyes blinking sharp awareness all too suddenly, flames leaping into his hands. She's already cursing and bracing for how much that's going to hurt- for the weirdly familiar sensation of her skin cracking apart- but Frumpkin bites down hard on Caleb's fingers and he jerks, the flames dying instantly.</p><p>“Was?” He mutters, frowning at Frumpkin, then he sees the shape of Beau and repeats it. “Was?”</p><p>Shit. She's so terrible with Zemnian. The syllables never stick right on her tongue, but she clears her throat and tries anyway.</p><p>“Uh, Ich bin...stehle der katze.”</p><p>Ah shit wait. That's not...crap that was wrong wasn't it?</p><p>She knows it as soon as she says it, because Caleb's face crinkles and he tilts his head ever so slightly at her.</p><p>“Ich...stechle dein katze,” she repeats, stumbling over the correction, but then she realizes Caleb is laughing at her.</p><p>She punches him.</p><p>“Why...why are you stealing my Cat?” He says, voice rough with sleep and the accent, but his eyes are clear, his features no longer stretched in that blank expression.</p><p>“Uh...” She can't very well admit that Artagan had crept terrified into her room. Both because now that she's actively thinking about it is still maybe just a little creepy, but also it feels wrong somehow, admitting someone else's weakness.</p><p>“Couldn't sleep?” He guesses, and there's something in his eyes like understanding.</p><p>“Yeah,” she offers lamely, and he peels Frumpkin from his shoulder, wincing as the Cat digs his claws in for a moment before relenting.</p><p>“Well, fey Cats are good for that sort of thing,” he says.</p><p>“Sure,” she hedges, not sure how to go about a heart to heart in the middle of all this.</p><p>Caleb mumbles something in Zemnian that she barely understands- something along the lines of 'the things I do for family,' and the fond, exasperated tone of his voice as he says it causes a lump to well in her throat.</p><p>“I'll give him back at breakfast,” she says instead of something more sappy. “Probably.”</p><p>“You had better,” Caleb says, and smiles ever so slightly as he settles Frumpkin in her arms.</p><p>“Yeah yeah,” she mutters, as Frumpkin buts his head against her chin, purring. “I make no promises.”</p><p>She leaves before he can fireball her. (Before the odd, fond emotion gets too much and she says something stupid and emotional like I love you or some shit.)</p><p>When she gets back to the room, it's to find that Light is still cast from the bedpost. Just a soft glow this time, but enough to illuminate the bed and the figures on it. Artagan had taken Beau's spot, and he's wound himself so tightly around Jester it's almost impossible to tell where the Fey ends and she begins. Beau has a sudden, horrible flash of how they'd looked in the cell in the Feywild- almost exactly like this, only Artagan's body had looked far more brutalized than it did now. But he trembles the same as he had in the cell, and Jester's fingers are gentle as they comb through his short hair, her chin against his temple where his face is buried in her neck.</p><p>It's way too late an hour, or maybe it's early, for Beau to process the way she feels almost jealous. It's a far too intimate display, and to counter the way it feels like she's intruding, she drops Frumpkin on Artagan's shoulder.</p><p>He flinches hard, and she almost feels bad until he pulls enough away from Jester that Frumpkin can settle more firmly and starts to purr. Then he twists and gives Beau a look, and she shrugs in the face of the expression.</p><p>“Cats always make everything better, Frumpkin especially, so.”</p><p>Jester gives her a grateful look, something so earnest in her eyes Beau almost flushes.</p><p>(She definitely flushes, but thankfully the light's not bright enough that she can be called out on it.)</p><p>Artagan slowly uncurls from his tight position, rolling over so Frumpkin settles against his chest and neck. He's purring louder now, and there's something odd on Artagan's face. He hasn't even touched Frumpkin yet, is just lying there blinking, and Beau rolls her eyes and shuffles closer to the bed.</p><p>“What do you not know how to pet a cat?” She teases, then realizes that it's not quite that, but close enough that Artagan doesn't meet her eyes.</p><p>“Right, well,” she says, extending her hand.</p><p>It's a mistake, she realizes, only after she's done it. Artagan recoils sharply, eyes flashing bright with something not unlike the raw, primal terror of an animal. A noise builds in the back of his throat, not quite words, but high and desperate like a plea as he focuses not on her face, but her hand.</p><p>“Shit,” she hisses, even as Jester hisses something more <em>Infernal</em>. “Shit, no, it's ok.”</p><p>He stops making that whining sound, but eyes her warily, gaze shifting not at her, but at the way she's standing; how she's holding her weight; where her hand is in relation to him. Then he remembers he still has a cat on his chest, and some of the instinctive panic fades to confusion. He swallows and works his tongue around his mouth again like he was trying to remember how it worked.</p><p>Beau tenses, but while there is no sound, his lips form the basis of something resembling 'what?'</p><p>“Uh, sorry,” Beau says, because she thinks that's what people are supposed to do in these situations. “I didn't mean to... I'm gonna grab your hand, ok?”</p><p>He blinks at her, which she takes as enough of a yes despite how Jester looks ready to murder her if she makes one wrong move. Beau shoves aside the distinct sensation of her skin cracking apart, of dark energy tearing in and clawing across her nerves. She doesn't doubt that Jester wouldn't even hesitate if she thought that Beau in any way was a danger to him, and she can't shake the odd thought that of all the ways to go, she almost wouldn't mind that.</p><p>(Inflict Wounds is a touch spell, after all.)</p><p>Instead of further processing her admittedly shitting coping mechanisms, she latches carefully onto Artagan’s wrist. He blinks sharply, and she adjusts her grip when she realizes that fuck, there are still bruises there and she tries to shake the image of what his wrists had looked like when they’d dragged him in. She settles his hand on top of Frumpkin’s head, and the cat chirps happily and starts to purr again. For a second, Artagan just sits there stiffly, uncertain, and then he carefully curls his fingers. Frumpkin meows in content and butts his head against Artagan’s hand and Beau is suddenly struck with how adorable this whole thing is.</p><p>To combat the part of her that wants to point that out, to potentially detrimental results, she instead says, “Alright shove the fuck over” and nudges Artagan’s shoulder so he moves. It’s a tight squeeze, all three of them, well, four with Frumpkin. But they make it work, Jester sandwiched between the two of them, her arms around Artagan and Beau’s arms around her, Frumpkin around Artagan’s neck and shoulders.</p><p>Beau pointedly ignores the looks that they receive when they all stumble down to breakfast in the morning, and instead dumps Frumpkin pointedly in Caleb’s lap, jostling his bowl of oatmeal.</p><p>“Thanks for the cat,” she grumbles, and behind her, Artagan hums a soft sound in agreement.</p><p>“No…problem,” Caleb drawls slowly, giving an odd thumbs up.</p><p>It’s not the most conventional method, but shit if any of them have ever been conventional.</p><p>(It pays off two weeks later when Artagan finally speaks.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Big God- Florence+The Machine</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>For josephine and Cronenburger from the CR discord</p></blockquote></div></div>
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